Neighbors

I've been living at my current residence since July of 2005, and only barely know 3 neighbor's, and when I mean by barely know, it's been a couple of instances of a "Hello, there" greeting. Couldn't tell you their names.

who has time for making friends with people for no other reason besides locality? it's pot luck whether you actually, like, get on, or have shared interests. work colleagues/associates are bad enough for this kind of thing.

We have some pretty excellent neighbors here. The house on one side is an older snowbird couple that spends the winters in Arizona, and the house on the other side is Wisconsin's first same-sex couple to adopt more than one special-needs child, whom we have had a blast getting to know.

We don't know the people across the street, but they let us set up the big telescope in their driveway anytime.

Except for a very brief period when I was a boy, I have almost never known any of my neighbors. Often times I couldn't even pick them out of a crowd, and for the remainder things never really extended beyond polite conversation.

The first two places I have any memory of living at- an apartment and then a house- my family took the time to meet neighbors and I made friends with other kids and so on. We moved to the house where the rest of my family currently lives in mid-2000, and I haven't really met much of anyone. My parents still take the time and know several neighbors, and my sister did too, but it was never a priority for me. I probably wouldn't have met anyone at the other places either if my parents hasn't made attempts to reach out.

I think a lot of the attitude towards meeting neighbors changed after 9/11. For or better or for worse- in my opinion absolutely the latter- people have become far more paranoid in general, or, if not that, at least less trusting. We live in a less easygoing world, which is sad.

Of course, as I already said, I was already less inclined to meet neighbors, but that was just because I had different priorities, not because I was less trusting. I'm often far too trusting as it is.

We have a block party twice a year and I know nearly everyone by name. Their kids are all friends with my sons. We have a block email group for sharing lost pet alerts and babysitting requests and local news about neighborhood crime and complaining about our failing sewer system and so on. It feels like a real community, and it's very hard to imagine living anywhere else.

Growing up, I knew most of our neighbors really well & spent a lot of time with the kids to the left of us. Then we moved to a new neighborhood about 8 or 9 years ago & I know the names of maybe two neighbors but I don't think I've spoken to any of them. It's a really strange dynamic here...very gossipy. When we first moved in apparently people were talking & saying that my dad was living with his wife & girlfriend